I live in a university town where the music sucks. Pretty ironic, considering all the kids here and their love of good music, but the only nightclub here plays shit like the Chainsmokers and House songs instead of actual club bangers.

So I thought to myself, “What if I could bring the taste of my home city to here?”. If any of you have been to Montreal, you know how wild some of the clubs can get. And they’re just playing Top 40s and Hip Hop.

I called a buddy of mine who used to be a DJ and asked him for some advice. Told him I wanted to learn, what shit I should buy, etc. Ended up spending a pretty 500$ penny before the day even ended.

And then the next day, it all began. I downloaded some tunes, messed around like a 5 year old and quickly realized I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Everything was so complicated. I didn’t understand anything that was going on on the screen. I’m not a super creative personality either. I thought it just wasn’t for me.

I’d like to thank the member on the TRP Discord who first brought this concept up. A lot of people often lose sight of the end goal when they are challenged. They get stressed that shit doesn’t work, their emotions take over, and then they contemplate. Is this really for me?

Do you know how many people have sajd that? Literally every person who was done something new with their lives. Literally every person who became a DJ. Or every person who got a new job, a new car, wife, whatever.

The problem is that people often give up when they are challenged. However, the main causation behind it is that they are hamstering something out of their minds. Oh I’m not good enough... Oh I’m not a natural. He does it so easily... I must not be right for this.

What do these thoughts all have in common? It’s all yourself disqualifying yourself based on no real reason. You feel bad that shit isn’t working well for you. That feeling begins to compound with every failure, so you use that as an excuse to quit. Same concept applies to cold approaching, or anything really in life.

Next time you feel shit because of something, I want you to think of reasons why you feel shit. And then a reason behind that. And the reason behind that. Keep on going until you realize that this feeling... probably has nothing to do with you.

*TL;DR** You are doing something new for the first time. Things aren’t working out, maybe you’re making mistakes and want to quit. But, you really want to quit because you feel bad. You know that if you were good at it, you wouldn’t quit. Literally everyone has felt this way you have. Everyone made it through. Wipe your tears off and keep on going.

Doing things like this also gives you confidence as well, tackling problems and trying new things. I remember that in school my grades were pretty shit and I needed to change. I always told myself that I will change but things never worked out until one day I put the work in and started getting results. Even when everyone said you can't do it, you just have to keep going.

I think that most of the time, people have that thought of disqualifying yourself because you're afraid of losing everything you have. For example: Starting a new business up, you're afraid to lose your money and lose your friends due to the task requiring a lot of time.

It's good to keep in mind that not everyone are naturally suited for everything. I remember I had similar interest in actual creating music from the scratch and to learn coding and I gave up with both after a week or two of spending all my spare time on those (separately). And countless of other hobbies that I delved into to see what is it like. You have to love doing that to push through all the difficulties that arise along the way.

If you are only interested in the "final product" or how to use the final product and everything in between is only a painful/irritating/frustrating experience, the odds are that hobby isn't for you. If that learning experience is exciting and fun, there you go.

That's the problem, you just tried 1 week and that isn't remotely enough to be comfortable even with the basics. Despite loving something it's never pleasant until you are comfortable with it. What it makes you feel bad is being out of comfort zone and feeling clunky/stupid doing something you can't handle properly yet, added with the frustration of 'I wanna be so good but I suck right now'.

Try learning guitar and I bet my ass you will feel like shit in the learning process instead of enjoying it, even if you freaking love music. Until you can pull a solo by yourself, only then you will start truly enjoying it and feeling great every time you play the guitar. Loving something doesn't automatically make all the process an enjoyable walk in the park.

11 years ago I got as a Xmas present an electric guitar due to that Guitar Hero craze, but I had a hard time getting through it because it was waaaaay more complex. I was 12 too, that didn't help, and had no life (life?) beyond vidya. I also fiddled around with the drums, but just enough to make some rhythms and that's it. Last year I switched to the bass, and I couldn't be happier.

Look, at first I just learnt the easy stuff. Some punk/rock riffs, the usual stuff, some note-filled songs here and there. Then I wanted more, to slap and pop 'cause it sounds fucking cool. Seinfeld was there, so was RHCP's Higher Ground. And now? Going into Primus, and planning to make a punk-ish EP. Because I want to.

In parallel, 4 years ago I started CompSci, and freshmen learn C++ for the first year and a half, with some assembly and SQL in between. When you have no idea to code, it becomes really hard to know what to do. At first I did the HS approach: do the "hard work" (read: look up the theory and minimize practice) before the exam. You can guess how well did that go. While I persevered, it took a really really bad semester to know that I couldn't do that for much longer.

Eventually I learnt the value of working hard - maybe later than most at my age, and what? - and now it's my time to shine. And NOBODY can and will take that away from me.

Music in this day in age is actually really hard to make. In contrast to that it's also easier, there are so many "companies" that sell samples to producers and such but it's subpar to what you wanna make really. For me atleast, I can tell when something is just poorly written. It's actually still one of the hardest art forms to conceptualize because you don't really see it. When you hear music your brain processes it way differently than you actually creating it, with all the chords, melody lines, and tension that's just the understanding of theory.

You haven't gone into sound design something you can't even look at. It's a science all it's that is ironically ignored since it's math to a higher degree.

Also not gonna lie if youre serious about it, learning all that shit then actually applying it with practice takes alot of time. I've lost many friends because they would get upset when I wouldn't hangout with them.

Going about the final product, yeah it's fucking worth it when you see years of work put into and you can out do alot of people just by a couple strokes on the computer.

That's how you master (internalize) things. If you put your ego to interfere with the learning process, you're going to fuck up.

It's like this with everything in life. In your case djing. You can't play tracks or hype the crowd if you don't know the basics in mixing records as beatmatching bpm and harmonic mixing. You're just going to 'kill' the vibe with up and down energy.

Same with TRP. You can't spin plates/fwb if you haven't internalized the basic tenets. You do that by applying the teaching in the real life and see the feedback, then calibrate. It takes time, its not an overnight process.

This is just the post i needed at this point. I am at my 3rd year of computer science/software engineering and shit just hit the fan pretty damn hard with regards to the stuff we are learning. I lost count of how many times i thought "is this really for me" since shit hasn't been going the way it should. It nice to remember that almost everyone has gone trough this faze and that i just need to keep on working. Best of luck to you on becoming a DJ

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Great post. Putting yourself out there and learning is great. Like my art teacher said.. you have to draw the shit drawings before you can draw any good ones. It's all a part of it. Don't question the process

Part of it is the self awareness. You have to acknowledge that you are bad at something, before you can start to improve. But you right, if it's only negative self talk, then it leads to giving up early a lot of times.

To balance that out you need an encouragement. It's the key for moving forward. And it's hard, if you never got encouraged by someone, and it feels weird at first telling yourself "it's okay, you can do it" and "let's try it again". But small positive feedbacks add up and build a new habit. A habit of self compassion.

Meditation also helps with negative self talk, if you consistent with it (plus it's another useful habit).

I'm considering moving to Montreal what is the music/party scene like and what is the most popular type of music they play? also heard they had a really big rave scene. Also why did you choose to go to a smaller college town vs staying in Montreal for school? Montreal is usually rated as the #1 student city in the world and I'm considering going there for school. Right now how would you compare the college town vs Montreal and are you happy with your decision? What is the college town your in? you don't gotta answer that one if u don't Wana.

I’m in the military and got stationed at a university town a few hours away. It’s a good go because the town is more of a small city. The party scene is a bit meh compared to Montreal but tons of girls.

Depends where you go in Montreal, but for the most part the clubs play Top 40, Hip Hop, and Club Bangers.

On Boulevard Saint Laurent is where most of the kids go, that’s pretty much the only music they play. On Crescent Street, the crowd gets a little older but the venues are a bit more sophisticated. In the Old Port, that’s where most of the older people go and where the music starts feeling more like European club music and it’s really uptight.

As a veteran Chicago House DJ (35 years), I'll forgive your dig (it's not your fault that your college town is probably playing that crap that came out of somebody's ass that they call "house music") because your main point is extremely spot on and I have a soft spot for up and coming jocks trying to get into the game.

But yeah...self-defeat/doubt will take you down far more than any other opposition you might encounter.

As we often say here; just do the damn thing. You'll figure it out soon enough.

Where's the rest of the story? "I bought some DJ stuff."... "I felt bad because I was over my head."
And then you talk about not quitting? Why not? You quit your story and jumped to a "lesson" that your story doesn't corroborate. Huh?